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Academia Parenting Pregnancy

Let’s Do That Thing That Doesn’t Work

November 30, 2022 48 Comments

Janice Fiamengo pokes through the outpourings of Sophie Lewis: 

Only a Marxist-feminist could pledge with a straight face that children will be better off when they are raised by a shifting coalition of non-relatives—or that being paid (by the state, one presumes) to raise someone else’s children will be more gratifying and less tiring than looking after one’s flesh and blood.

But Lewis’s utopianism is undeterred by evidence or common sense. “To abolish the family,” she has stated reassuringly in interview, “is not to destroy relationships of care and nurturance, but on the contrary, to expand and proliferate them.” To prove this point, Lewis’s book includes a historical survey of Marxist and queer imaginings of new types of social-family.

Given that such ideas stretch far back into the nineteenth century, one is struck less by the radicalism of Lewis’s propositions than by their tired predictability and centuries-old lack of viability. Does Lewis ever stop to ponder why attempts to replace the family have never managed to sustain themselves, even on a small scale? […] Does Lewis ever ponder the fact that it is mainly Marxist-feminists and queer radicals who seek a world in which caring for children could be farmed out to acquaintances?

Ms Lewis and her fever dreams have of course been mentioned here before: 

So far as I can tell, and despite Ms Lewis’ theorising, mothers-to-be don’t generally feel a need to parse their pregnancy in terms of “abolishing the private nuclear household” and “global regimes of colonial and commodity exploitation.” Or indeed to champion abortion, via drugs or dismemberment, as a form of “anti-violence.” But that’s probably because – to borrow a phrase from Joan – they haven’t been tugging on the intersectional crack pipe.
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Written by: David
Academia Dating Decisions Free-For-All

Our Betters Stroke Their Pets

November 28, 2022 69 Comments

I’m just going to leave this here, I think: 

[Kathy] Rudy seems uncertain as to whether she is sexually attracted to her own dogs: “I know I love my dogs with all my heart, but I can’t figure out if that love is sexually motivated.” For some reason, I’ve never grappled with this problem, but then again, I’m not versed in Queer Theory.

Other questions generated by means of Queer Theorising include, “Do I think I’m having sex with my dogs when they kiss my face?” Apparently, for Dr Rudy, a Professor of Women’s Studies, being licked by a dog is difficult to distinguish from kissing grandma on the cheek or being lost in a full-on erotic fever. And thus, we’re told, “The line between ‘animal lover’ and zoophile is not only thin, it is non-existent.” 

Previously in the land of Queer Theory. 

And of course this rather eye-widening example.

Also, open thread.

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Written by: David
Academia Pronouns Or Else

Butter My Crumpets To Get A Gold Star

November 24, 2022 24 Comments

Lifted from the comments, where much of the fun happens:

Old and cold: Preferred pronouns.

The hot new thing: Preferred adjectives.

Says Min,

I can’t tell if it’s a piss-take.

Well, we live in unhinging times, so it can be hard to tell. It did occur to me that maybe the parent, the one seeking pre-approval for adjectives, could have been indulging in some elaborate wind-up, one that passed undetected by its target. Or maybe the anecdote is a fiction, a self-flattering fantasy. Again, it’s hard to be sure. As the archives here illustrate, a thing being farcical doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

But either way, it must be quite strange to go through every day with your own “identity” foregrounded, forever in mind and endlessly referred to, and always craving an affirmation that is at best a polite lie. And with unending deference and flattery as an aspiration, an ideal, an ‘A-plus.’

And oh yes, the adjectives expected.

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Written by: David
Academia Free-For-All

Pejoratives Were Deployed

November 16, 2022 61 Comments

They’re bringing us together with their intersectional piety:

Gettysburg College has postponed a painting and writing event hosted by its Gender Sexuality and Resource Centre for people who are “Tired of white cis men.” The private Pennsylvania college offered the event as part of a peace and justice, or “P&J,” senior project, but has since postponed it after it was shared online. The event, originally scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 12, told people to “come paint and write about” how they are tired of straight, white men. The pieces from the event would then be displayed in the school’s dining hall for the campus to view.

For a mere $76,000 a year, you too can receive such lofty moral instruction.

Update, via the comments:

Connor adds, “It’s like everything they say has to be reversed.”

Well, yes, frequently. It’s not obvious, for instance, how “peace” would be achieved by cultivating a pretentious and competitive disdain for one’s classmates, and for random passers-by, based on their sex and skin colour. It’s also somewhat doubtful that the supposedly oppressive and fatigue-inducing properties of any other racial demographic would be a basis for an art event at an upscale college.

But as Lionel Shriver once put it, “Progressives seem especially prone to disguising one feeling as another.” And so, a contrived, self-flattering resentment – and outright bigotry – become acts of woke piety. And students are encouraged to believe that badmouthing people based on their skin colour is a thing one does in order to bond and make friends, and to impress others and thereby become statusful.

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Written by: David
Academia Big Hooped Earrings Politics Problematic Civility Reheated

Reheated (74)

October 25, 2022 42 Comments

More items from the archives:

She’s Seething With Empowerment.

A Guardian contributor encounters a small act of courtesy, screaming ensues.

Ms Huckeba continues, “No, you cannot open this door for me! You wouldn’t have opened it two years ago, so you damn sure can’t open it now!” “I scowled and stormed away,” says she, “completely enraged.” You see, he’s not allowed to do that – holding open the door for her – or for any woman, presumably. Because although Ms Huckeba didn’t know this polite gentleman and had never seen him before, she’s nevertheless sure of what his views on holding doors open for people must have been two years previously, back when she was fat. It’s intersectional science. And this being the Guardian, what matters is that Ms Huckeba can invoke victimhood to rationalise having behaved like a complete and utter cow.

Don’t Oppress My People With Your Big Hooped Earrings.

The pretentiously agonised, part 436.

When not struggling with oppressive punctuation, Ms Martinez spends her time fretting about the fact that she and her peers are “not taken seriously” as the radical titans they so obviously are. According to fellow umbrage-taker Jacquelyn Aguilera, who also emailed the entire campus, “winged eyeliner, lined lips, and big hoop earrings” are “an everyday act of resistance” by the brown and virtuous.

You Mustn’t Stop The Hysteria.

A Professor of Education denounces consequences for… well, pretty much anything.

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Written by: David
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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.